Confucius Institute to host Chinese Film Festival

The Confucius Institute of the University of South Carolina, in partnership with the Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC) and the Nickelodeon Theater, will sponsor its second Chinese Film Festival Feb. 3 – 24.

The series will make available four award-winning films to Columbia audiences for the first time. The screenings, which are free and open to the public, will take place at 6 p.m. each Thursday. Discussions about the films will follow each screening.

The CI collaborates with the MIRC, part of University Libraries, and Nickelodeon, South Carolina’s only non-profit art-house cinema, to make the Chinese Film Series possible.

The film series schedule is as follows:

Feb. 3 (Chinese New Year’s Day). “Last Train Home” (2009) was voted best feature-length documentary at the 2009 Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. During the Chinese Spring Festival, millions of migrant workers long to return home from work in urban centers. After one such journey, the film examines the conflicts experienced by an ordinary Chinese family during the modernization process. A reception will take place after the screening.

Feb. 10 “Red Sorghum”(1987), directed by Zhang Yimou, won the Berlin International Film Festival’s prestigious Golden Bear award. The film tells a sweeping story of romance and resistance set in a sorghum winery during the Sino-Japanese War. MIRC will supply a 35mm print of the film from its Chinese Film Collection.

Feb. 17 “Mountain Patrol” (2004) is the true story of the volunteers protecting antelope from poachers in the mountains of Tibet. The film won director Lu Chuan the Don Quixote Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, Special Jury Prize at Tokyo International Film Festival and the Hong Kong Film Award. It was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The Chinese Film Collection will supply a 35 mm print.

Feb. 24 “Ocean Heaven” (2010) stars Jet Li in his first dramatic role. This recently released film tells the moving story of an ordinary man who works at an aquarium and cares for his adult autistic son.

The Chinese Film Festival is part of the New Year Activity series hosted and sponsored by the Confucius Institute.

For more information about the series, contact Yongli Li at the Confucius Institute, 803-777- 4758 or clean.ann@gmail.com, or Dr. Mark Cooper, MIRC, 803-777-2058 or coopermg@mailbox.sc.edu

USC is the first research university in South Carolina to establish a Confucius Institute (CI) in collaboration with the Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) and the Office of Chinese Language Council International, a division of the Chinese Ministry of Education. The Chinese Film Collection is a major undertaking of USC’s Confucius Institute, which was established in November 2008. The films are particularly valuable because they document cultural diplomacy, representing what officials of the People’s Republic of China wanted U.S. citizens to see and know about China after formal diplomatic relations were established in 1979.

More information about USC’s Confucius Institute (www.cas.sc.edu/ci), MIRC and the Chinese Film Collection (www.sc.edu/library/mirc/list.html?cat=2) and the Nickelodeon Theatre (www.nickeldeon.org) is available online.